A wave of anti-chareidi legislation is rising as the summer session of the Knesset opens. Many are sponsored be members of the government.
Among the proposals are liberalizing changes in the marriage system and the conversion system. Among them is a proposal by the Assistant Minister of Religions Ben Dahan of the Habayit Hayehudi party that would open the conversion process to all the regional rabbis, which would certainly weaken the current safeguards against non-sincere and ineffectual conversions.
A proposal by MK Dov Lipman of Yesh Atid, who has a yeshiva background, would pass Knesset legislation that would remove the ownership retroactively of a husband to the ring he used to marry his wife if he has not fulfilled, within a year, an order of a rabbinical beis din to divorce his wife. This mishmash of Torah law and Knesset law would wreak havoc and cause very serious issues in Jewish family law.
Some proposals bear the hallmarks of the policies of Reform groups, who have found willing partners in the current government. Other proposals are directed against various laws and rulings of the Rabbinical courts.
Another proposal would reduce further the government support of religious life. There are also proposals that the Minister of Justice would supervise municipal rabbis, that the government introduce registration and supervision of mohelim including prison time for violations (this was strongly opposed by the Chief Rabbinate), that the government set up its own Shmittah Committee, that significant changes be made in the Kosel Plaza, that women be better represented on the Religious Councils, that civil marriage be advanced along with laws about deviants. If successful some of these proposals, such as supervision of mohelim, could have negative implications on other parts of the world where there are initiatives to limit the operation of milah.
